Faith of Our Sisters

Sara Paretsky has published a memoir, Writing in the Age of Silence. She is beloved for her detective fiction. As the creator of Chicago detective V. I. Warshawski, Paretsky has been exploring a woman’s role in what was a man’s world. In this recent book, she reflects on the road she and her sisters have traveled from the days when “women have been property, first of our fathers, then of our husbands or brothers.”

The chapter, “Not Angel, Not Monster, Just Human,” traces the progress of second wave feminism. She dwells on a glaring irony in the attitude of the hard right.

We are in a peculiar state of mind in America these days. We want untrammeled capital markets. We think speed limits, handgun controls and taxes are unwarranted intrusion into personal liberty. But we feel an overwhelming need to control women’s sexuality.

We can trust Wall Streeters, drivers, gun owners and the wealthy enough to loosen our policy grip, while we must tighten our grip on the bodies of our sisters, wives and mothers. The rationale of the religious right is at the heart of the hypocrisy. There is a ferocious effort to turn back the clock. It shows its ugly face in a peculiar American iteration of violence. For when it comes to the control of women over their own bodies, a kind of home grown terrorism soon appears.

Paretsky unveils another, more pernicious, irony. By returning our sisters to the status of objects, we are reseeding the foundations of pornography. At its most basic, pornography stems from the confusion of persons with objects. This dirty little secret remains unrecognized in these churches. All the happy talk about healthy relationships, acceptable sex roles, so called family values, disguise a contempt for human sexuality and ultimately its abuse. “As women are bombarded with images of themselves as sexual objects or sexual monsters, . . .women seem to seek to appear harmless.” That is the prevailing dynamic in right wing congregations. Dealing with sexuality in such stereotypic terms, in fact, is dangerous.

Just human, that is Paretsky’s destination. Theologians would do well to begin their thinking there. The scriptures do! “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Faith communities are starving for such discerning voices.